WAATI/TIME (1995, South Africa/Côte D’Ivoire/Mali/Namibia, 140 min.), directed by Souleymane Cissé; screenplay by Souleymane Cissé; cinematography by Jean-Jacques Bouhon, Vincenzo Marano, and Georgi Rerberg; music by Bruno Coulais; with Linèo Tsolo (Nandi), Sidi Yaya Cissé (Solofa), Mary Twala (Grandmother), Mariame Amerous Mohamed Dicko (Nandi at 6 Years), Balla Moussa Keita (Teacher), Eric Miyeni (Father), Nakedi Ribane (Mother), Adam Rose (Policeman), Niamanto Sanogo (Rastas’ Prophet). In English, Bambara, Dioula, and French with English subtitles.

Born in Bamako, Mali, in 1940, Souleymane Cissé is one of Africa’s pre-eminent directors, with a varied body of creative work. As a young man, he worked as a photographer and a projectionist in Mali. From 1963 to 1969 he studied filmmaking in Moscow at the State Institute of Cinema, where a number of other future African directors (including the great Ousmane Sembène) received a firm grounding in the technical art of cinema under the accomplished Soviet director Mark Donskoi.

Cissé returned to Mali in 1969, where he went to work for the Ministry of Information as a documentary filmmaker. He made his first short fiction film, Five Days in a Life, in 1972, then his first feature, Den Muso/The Young Girl, in 1975. This was followed by Baara/The Porter in 1978, Finyé/Wind in 1982, Yeelen/Brightness in 1987, and Waati/Time in 1995.

His films have received numerous awards at international festival, including the Jury Award for Best Film at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival for Yeelen. Cissé was recently named the recipient of the fifth annual Genevieve McMillan and Reba Stewart Fellowship for Distinguished Filmmaking at Harvard.

Along with his work as a director, Cissé has been a tireless advocate for African cinema, and just last week organized an important gathering of filmmakers in Bamako. It is a great honor to have Souleymane Cissé with us in Portland for the opening of the 15^th Cascade Festival of African Films.

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Excerpts from a 1997 interview with Nawachukwu Frank Ukadike:

The multinational, multiracial crew used in Waati is unprecedented in the history of African cinema.

The multinational, multicultural talents and crew reflect my ambition of moving cinema beyond the borders of Mali or Africa, to work with people across the globe, and use the medium to communicate with audiences. Waati brought together people from Mali, Côte D’Ivoire, France, Guinea, Italy, South Africa, Russia, and America. It was filmed on locations in Côte D’Ivoire, Mali, Namibia, and South Africa. I have been told that the greatest attribute of the film is the freedom allowed the characters to use indigenous African languages in the regions the film was set. The question of language has been a major concern for African filmmakers, and I have been a strong advocate of the need to respect the languages of various people. Over the years, I have realized that people feel more comfortable and are more fluent in the delivery of dialogues in their mother tongues, besides that it renders authentic the manner of in which certain issues are portrayed and communicated. As in the other West African countries we filmed, in South Africa, characters spoke Zulu, Afrikaans, English, pidgin English, and so on. My purpose is to let the actors convey their emotions naturally and convincingly, not as in Hollywood films when an American actor tries to speak like an African in a bastardized accent simply because the producers do not want to offer an African role to an African.

Why was Waati set in South Africa?

The film could have been done anywhere. I thought that it should be done in South Africa because it is on the African continent. It would be better there than doing it in the United States. I preferred South Africa because it is the least-known country, the youngest independent country in Africa today. But the story could have happened anywhere.

Partially correct! The script was written in 1988, before President Nelson Mandela was released from jail. However, after Mandela’s release, I went to South Africa in 1990. I saw the new South Africa as it was emerging, and for me it was possible to reflect on the past to assess the present. But from the film you can see a broader spectrum of African reality—how the problems in one region affect the other countries within the continent. It is also about the future. After my visit to South Africa I was convinced that this film must be made there. I made some changes to incorporate new developments into the script without altering the original structure.

That makes me laugh, because even today, there are still crimes from World War II that haven’t been tried. Waati is like a book. It is our memory. Each time there is a need, we will open up this book and look at it. People can refuse to talk about it today, but the memory is there. The issues are resurrected because they exist in our memory and will stay there. It is all for the better if there is reconciliation. Let us hope that there is reconciliation around the whole planet and that people of all races would pay less attention to what races they belong so that man emerges victorious. It is in this objective that I made this film. This film is not a bitter film, but an understanding one, so that people can mutually pardon each other and tell each other the truth. It is only with this spirit of forgiveness that we can function. We have to give time to South Africans to take care of their problems, and it is for that reason that the film is called Waati, which means time. Time will show a reason for this, even if I am no longer here.